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Why Academic Physicians Should Join The AMA
Our American Medical Association (AMA) does more to improve the practice of medicine in this country than any other medical association. Our AMA is deeply committed to quality patient care and quality medical education. It maintains rigorous standards of ethical professional conduct to guide physicians in making patient care decisions and ensures the high quality of medical education in this country through its accreditation programs.

Ensuring the Quality of Medical Education
The American Medical Association was founded with the goal of improving the condition of medical education in the United States. Through the years, the AMA has served as a leader in ensuring that there are high standards for medical education across the continuum. For example, when Medicare reform efforts in the 104th congress threatened to slash funding in graduate medical education, the AMA's grassroots efforts helped convince Representatives that deep cuts would threaten quality health education and ultimately patient care. The AMA continues to call for full reimbursement to teaching hospitals for the reasonable costs of residents' salaries and fringe benefits. Because vitally-needed changes in our system of funding graduate medical education are needed, AMA's proposal to transform Medicare includes a plan to restructure the funding of GME and sustain our nation's teaching hospitals.

Serving as an Advocate for Medical Education
The AMA has a strong advocacy voice in Washington and in the states and has used its resources to address issues of importance to academic physicians. For example, the AMA has objected strongly to the standards being applied in the nationwide PATH audits being conducted by the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG). The retroactive application of regulations is grossly unfair and threatens to cripple our nation's medical schools, teaching hospital and faculty practice plans. The AMA is prepared to pursue all remedies, including litigation, to ensure that PATH audits be conducted in a manner consistent with the law in effect at the time the audited claims were filed.

The AMA continues to explore the impact of managed care on academic medical centers and has called for managed care providers to play an active role in financing and facilitating residency programs.

Pursuing the Development of Rational Medical Education Policy
There is a growing concern that there will soon be an oversupply of physicians in the United States and that will not be in the best interest of the nation. Any legislative proposal to reform physician workforce will have far-reaching impact on the future of medical education and academic medical centers. In conjunction with five other major national medical association our AMA has recommended a strong response to the growing problem of physician oversupply.

Supporting Individual Medical Schools
Since it was founded in 1956, the American Medical Association Education and Research Foundation (AMA-ERF) has distributed over $64 million to medical schools. These funds are used to provide financial assistance to medical schools and to assist schools in program development.